Institutionalized
by Static Prose
Summary: This alternate universe story pits Duo Maxwell and the other four G-boys against the nasties of mental institutions. Because of certain unfinished business in this story, The sequel, Hospitalized was required. Mostly language involved here, with a small
1. Default Chapter Title

~This story came to me from my second visit to a mental health institute. No, I'm not crazy; and anyone who says so *DIES*!! Mwa hahahahahaaaaa! I'm not going to tell everyone *why* I got put in there...times 2. It's personal...sorta. ^_^ Enjoy!  
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~Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing, or any of the sexy bishounen who are in it. (unfortunately) *pout*  
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The first day there was vague, to say the least. Taking way too many pills would make anyone pass out, ne? Well, I'm only human, so I barely remember the entrance, or being wheeled into my small, two bedded room, but I do remember being flung, rather painfully, in fact, onto the stiff mattress, cracking my skull on the headboard. I didn't care, just fell asleep. I was so tired, it felt like I could sleep for an eternity and still crave more. My sleep that night was fairly weird; the dreams containing things I could never truly temember in the daylight, and the voices that always haunted me, telling me what to do, screaming in my mind, driving me to the point I was at right now: A mental hospital.  
  
In the morning, with the sun shining in my window barely gray yet, but still far too bright for me and my enormous hangover, the first doctor of the day came in.  
  
"Time to take your vitals, sweetie." Vitals? Shit. I hate being woke up in the morning. I need my rest, dammit! What time *was* it, anyway? Far too early for my taste. I groaned something insulting and flipped over, burying my face in the pillow. "Don't be like that, now. Come on. Give me your arm, dearie." I hate cheerful people. Let's just ignore the fact that I tend to be one of the most cheerful people I know, even if it's not very genuine.  
  
Tingles shot up my arm when she had the blood pressure cuff wrapped around my arm and began squeezing the little black ball in her hand, filling the cuff with air and strangling my arm's life away. Geez, this sucked! I fell back into a vague sleep and barely noticed her taking my temperature, pulse, and respirations. She finally left the room, closing the door behind her, and allowing me some more precious sleepy time. I was very grateful for that small amount.  
  
  
  
"Duo Maxwell?" Dammit. The light in my room was brighter now and it hurt my eyes when I opened them. "Duo?" And now another squeely voice was calling my name.  
  
"Wha-?" my throat was so dry, I was croaking.  
  
"Duo, my name is Doctor Sheryl Taylor. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm here to talk to you about why you're here. Would you sit up, please?" That woman just made herself at home, sitting down on the empty bed across from me.  
  
I rolled over and was barely able to push myself into a somewhat vertical position. My hair clung to my face and the braid was ragged and nearly undone. My head spun horribly and my eyes wouldn't stay open.  
  
"Duo? Are you okay?" For the first time, I was able to focus my eyes on the tall woman sitting across from me. At least, she was tall compared to my height. She had long brown hair, which was plastered against her head and wound into a bun. Thick, black rimmed glasses sat on a small, rounded nose offset her small features. She looked like a grasshopper or a fly with those huge, round spectacles.  
  
She must have realized I wasn't going to say anything else, save for a small croak, and she handed me a small plastic cup of water. I quickly gulped it down, worshipping the blessed liquid as it cooled my vocal cords and relieved the hoarseness.  
  
"Better?" I nodded. "Duo, do you know why you're here?"  
  
"I tried to kill myself?" That shouldn't have been a question. I knew what I was doing when I swallowed those bottles of pills. I lowered my head and eyed the many scars that decorated my wrists.  
  
"So, you want to tell my what's wrong?"  
  
Such a simple question. Too simple to use for getting me to try and explain the many problems that infested my life. "No."  
  
"No? You really should talk about it It's the only way we can help you here."  
  
Yeah, yeah. "M...too tired." Good excuse. Maybe now she'd go away.  
  
"Okay, I'll try talking to you later." She got up to leave and I fell over on the bed, grunting and moaning from my headache. "Oh, and you'll be getting a roommate in a few minutes."  
  
"N-nani? I don't want a..."  
  
"Sorry, there aren't any other rooms available." Fine...I was too tired to care right now. I could complain later...after I'd had some more sleep and a bottle of aspirin.  
  
  
  
"What's your problem?" What? Someone was talking to me again!? Go away! I popped open one eye at the monotonous, slightly nasaly voice. Standing in the doorway, towel, washrag, blanket, and clothing in hand, was a guy about my age. Prussian blue eyes and such a mop of deep brown hair, it looked as if it would never see a brush, decorated his perfectly chiseled facial features. He was very thin, but very muscled. I could see that through his black spandex shorts which clung so suggestively to his thighs. I'd never seen a beatiful boy before, but here was one.  
  
Wait...didn't he say something... "Hn." He furrowed his brow and tossed his things on the dinky bedside table.  
  
"I'm fine! No problems here!" Of course, I plastered my large, infamous smirk on my face, even though my headache worsened with the action.  
  
H was ignoring me now? Going about making his bed. He was such a perfectionist! I watched as he made sure every corned on the sheet was perfectly squared onto the mattress. Not a single wrinkle. He fluffed his pillow and placed it exactly in the middle - at the foot of the bed? Okaaaaay... Then the thin, light blue blanket was placed over the perfectly straightened sheets and tucked neatly under the mattress. This guy was going to be hell to room with. What a little freak. "Hehehe...look who's talkin'!" I told myself.  
  
"Nani?" Shit, did I say that outloud? I quirked an eyebrow at him. He noticed me staring and did the same.  
  
"You put the pillow at the foot of your bed."  
  
"..." He sat down and pulled out a laptop from who knows where. *click click click* He's ignoring me again. Fine. I was, again, too tired to care now, so I rolled over to go back to sleep."  
  
"Heero Yuy."  
  
Okay, so he does want to talk to me. "I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never lie!" At that moment, a large yawn came over me. He stared at me like I was insane. Hmph. Maybe I was insane. After all, I *was* in a mental institute, right? But, he was here too, so who was he to judge me? "What are you in here for, Heero?"  
  
He stopped typing and glared at the keyboard as if it could burst into flames from the heat of his stare. "Destructive tendencies, I suppose."  
  
"Destructive tendencies? Like, blowing shit up?"  
  
"Hai, and myself."  
  
"You blow yourself up?" I had to sit up for this.  
  
"Hai. I try." He'd continued his typing on his laptop. I can't believe they let him keep that in here. He must have snuck it in somehow. Although, how the hell could he do that?  
  
"You try? But you've never succeeded. Why even try, then?" I laughed at myself. I was in here for the same damn reason. What a hypocrite.  
  
"Could you be quiet?" Still typing. Fine. I lay back down and buried my face in the pillow again. God, I needed sleep. My body ached like every bone was broken. Of course, I've never been one to give up easily, so I had to persist.  
  
"I'm here because I...tried to kill myself."  
  
"Hn." At least I got some sort of response.  
  
"I overdosed on lots of different things. Anti-depressants, headache pills, muscle relaxers, some aspirin..."  
  
"I get the idea." He was getting annoyed. This is what I loved: annoying people until they go insane from my babbling. This guy would break soon, no problem.  
  
"Oi, you tried to blow yourself to smithereens. I wouldn't be sounding so high and mighty if I were you." Big grin here. That's it. Seem friendly.  
  
"High and mighty?" He stopped typing and placed his laptop on the bed beside him. "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm not proud of the fact that, for one, I got caught trying to blow a building up again, and two, I failed. So, for your own sake, stay off my bad side and I won't have to kill you."  
  
"Wow...no prob!" I placed my hands up in a defensive way. "No hard feelings. I didn't mean to insult you or anything." One word he said definitely caught my attention: again. He'd been caught before. This guy was definitely nuts. Not someone you'd want to be on the bad side of, even if he hadn't just threatened to kill you. Eek!  
  
"Just be quiet, okay." That wasn't a request.  
  
I gave him a thumbs up and a grin, even though he'd just majorly pissed me off. "You got it!"  
  
"Hn." Then he continued typing and I went back to sleep. Good way to meet a guy, ne?  
  
  
"Oi, it's time for lunch." Someone was jabbing my arm, very sharply. I winced and slapped at the hand, which grabbed my wrist. "Duo, wake up."  
  
"Hey, I..." I finally opened my eyes and was greeted by fierce prussian blue. "Oh, Heero. Ohayo!"  
  
"Duo no baka. It's 12:30. Lunch." Definitely a conversationalist, this guy.  
  
"N...don wanna..." I pulled the blanket over my head. God, I was acting like a child. And around someone I only just met, too.  
  
"Baka. Get up. You need to eat. You're too skinny." With Heero's 'assistance' I finally pulled myself out of bed. Rather, he dragged me out of the bed, and across the floor, and into the hallway...still in my hospital gown, my ass hanging out the back. I heard a few people laughing at the display; some girls giggling in the back. How emberrassing!  
  
"Dammit, leggo!" I ripped my wrist free and crawled back into the room to clothe myself and regain my dignity after having just exposed myself out the back of my dress. Excellent! They'd brought my clothes to me. I slipped on the black boxers and pants and my shirts. Black and white and priest-like. Something suddenly occured to me then. I searched my neck and chest. It was gone! My cross was gone! I ran out the door and slid on my socked feet down the long corridor of doors to a large, glassed windowed room with many old, gray haired men and women. I grabbed the door handle and tapped on the glass quickly. An old woman came scuffling up and opened the door.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"My cross! The gold crucifix I wear around my neck. It's gone! Do you...?"  
  
"We've got it in here. You can't have jewelry while you're a patient."  
  
Damn. I plastered my most innocent-looking face on, blinking my wide violet eyes at the troll of a woman before me. "But couldn't you make an exception? That cross is very important to me and if I could just..."  
  
"No. No jewelry. Go eat your lunch" She started pulling on the door, probably to slam it in my face, but I still held the handle tightly.  
  
"But maybe if I could just..."  
  
"Lunch!" She jabbed a finger out, pointing down another hallway. Dammit. I'd just have to steal it back later. Right now, I was hungry, and when my stomach calls, I answer it.  
  
When I got to the cafeteria, everyone was already settled down and trying to eat the substance the hospital claimed was food. I knew I looked like shit warmed over, but I was hungry. Everyone stared at me as I grabbed my tray of crap and headed for a small table. Heero was there, with an seat to his left, and his right, and in front of him. In fact, no one was sitting at the table he was at. They cramped themselves into the tables farthest away from him. I shrugged and plopped myself down in front of him as he glared at me. "Nani? How's the food?"  
  
"You look awful. Didn't you bother to look in the mirror?"  
  
"No. I was in a hurry." He shrugged and picked at his food, scooping up a heap of mashed potatoes and shoving it into his mouth. Meat loaf, yuck!  
  
I spooned some into my mouth and nearly gagged from the taste. How he was eating it was beyond me. I can normally eat anything you set in front of me, but this was just disgusting. It tasted like socks. Dirty, smelly, old gym socks that have never even dreamed of being washed. Regardless of this fact, Heero spooned the greasy clumps into his mouth, swallowing efficiently. He didn't seem to hate the taste, but he didn't seem to mind it much, either. I gave the mashed potatoes a try. They were okay. They'd be a little better if they'd had some gravy on them, of course, but I ate them anyway. Then, there were the vegetables. I watched in shocked horror as Heero picked up every brussel sprout off his styrofoam plate with his spoon and shoved it into his mouth, one by one.  
  
"How can you eat this shit!?" He stopped spooning food into his mouth.  
  
"It doesn't taste that bad. It may taste better to you if you wash out your mouth." He popped the last brussel sprout into his mouth.  
  
"Nani? Wash out my mouth?"  
  
"Charcoal." He jabbed a finger at my chin. K'so! That's when I remembered. At the hospital, they'd given me a charcoal drink. I'd thrown it up everywhere in the room, especially on my own face. I wiped at my chin. My fingers came away with a faint blackness on them. Eww! I was able to muster up an obviously nervous laugh in my obvious emberrassment as I grabbed my tray and headed to my room, dumping the shit-food into a trash can, along with the plastic tray.  
  
When I got to my room, I immediately went to the little bathroom and hesitantly peered in the mirror. Shit. I looked like a piece of shit. Plain and simple. I had black streaks down my chin and neck, and I bared my teeth to see black stains on their pearly whiteness as well. Gross, gross, gross! And my braid! My poor, battered braid. Every free strand was matted and the length of the braid itself was tangled and nearly undone. My violet eyes were red and puffy, making me look like I'd been crying for hours, even though I hadn't cried in years. Boys don't cry. My bangs were stuck to my forehead from the intense sweating I'd been doing the night before. I'd woken up a few times to put a cool washcloth on my face.  
  
Okay. A shower. A shower would fix everything. I grabbed one of the tiny, white towels provided from my bedside table and went down the hall to the shower room. Heero was on his way back from lunch, heading to our room. He smirked as I passed. Jerk! I gave him a big grin, like I didn't give a fuck.  
  
The water felt like a heavenly massage on my skin. I undid my braid and let it slicken against my bare back. Speaking of bare...I looked around the boys' shower room. Each shower head that stuck out from the four walls had only chest high dividers on the left and right, no shower curtains. At least I was the only one in there. For someone who's so commonly being told how hot I am, I certainly can be paranoid about my body.  
  
A tap on my shoulder shocked me out of my train of thought. I turned around to face Heero. Nude, and staring at me. I felt my face get very hot and tried my best not to look down. He must have noticed, because he smirked again. "What's up, Heero?" I tried grinning. I hoped like hell I was pulling it off.  
  
"Taking a shower." He walked into the stall beside mine and turned on the water. Dammit. He stole my hot water. Not that I didn't need a cold shower after that little lovely view I had just received from him. Why was I thinking like that? Ugh! Jerk! This guy's a jerk!  
  
"You scared me." I turned around and started pushing on the shampoo dispenser stuck in the wall between the two of us. I could feel his eyes on my back. It made me squirm a little. I put the first handful of green goop into my hair and continued pushing on the dispenser for my second handful.  
  
"You use a lot of shampoo."  
  
"Hai...so?"  
  
"Hn." My! weren't we talkative today? Such idle chatter.  
  
Hn..."Did you really try to self-destruct?" I couldn't help but admire him for this. This guy had balls. Not like I didn't know that already, given the fact that he'd been naked in front of me only a minute ago.  
  
"Hai."  
  
"How?" I blinked at him a few times. Heero stopped scrubbing at the shampoo in his hair and turned to face me.  
  
"I destroyed a building. With a little girl inside." Heero's eyes took on a distant look of pain. He couldn't be all that bad, if he'd regretted killing a little girl. I still couldn't believe that he'd done that, though. I stopped shampooing my hair and walked towards him, placing my arm on top of the divider between us. "I had some C4 left, so I just set it around my house and pushed the detonator." He quirked an eyebrow. "It hurt like hell."  
  
I couldn't control the laughter that shot out of my mouth. That certainly was unexpected. So, this guy did have a sense of humor, at least! Maybe not. He was staring at me in an odd way. He must not have meant it as a joke. I coughed and stopped my laughter. "So...you blew up your own house?"  
  
"Hai."  
  
"Was there anyone else in it?" Not that I really wanted to know the answer to that.  
  
"Hai." Shit.  
  
"Who?" Sometimes I wish my mouth would just shut the fuck up.  
  
"My...guardian, Odin Lowe. I killed him in the explosion. Bastard deserved it." Heero clenched his fist around the small bar of soap in his hand and it broke into crumbles.  
  
"No one deserves death. Death is awful. I should know."  
  
"Nani?"  
  
"I should know. After all, I *am* Shinigami!" 


	2. Default Chapter Title

"I should know. After all, I *am* Shinigami!" Now why did I go and say that? I could feel myself slipping back into my other self. I get a bit weird when I start talking about being the God of Death. I hope like hell I don't have scizophrenia or something.  
  
"Shinigami? You..."  
  
"You two hurry up and get dressed. It's time for group." I turned to see a fat, balding man. The collar of his shirt was tight around his neck, pushing up rolls of fat into his face and making his cheeks puff out to an unimaginable plumpness. He looked like a shar pei, poor man.  
  
"Group?"  
  
"Bullshit. We sit in a group and talk about our feelings." Heero stuck his head back under the shower spray and rinsed the shampoo out of his hair.  
  
"Feelings? This sucks!" I started laughing again. He was looking at me like I was crazy again. Not that he had any reason to think otherwise, ne?  
  
"Hn."  
  
  
  
After we'd finished drying and dressing, I followed Heero down the hallway to a large, open area. The different patients had set the large, wooden chairs with plastic pink cushions into a big circle and were sitting and talking amongst themselves while the balding shar pei was lecturing something about self-esteem.  
  
"Well, now that everyone's here, we can begin." The general clamour of the group calmed down and the shar pei gestured with a plump hand at two open chairs across from him in the circle. "Have a seat."  
  
I plopped down in a chair and tucked my legs underneath me, leaning in towards the open chair that Heero glared at for a moment, then occupied. He looked pissed, and crossed his arms over his chest, giving shar pei a 'Heero Yuy Death Glare.' He does that a lot.  
  
Shar pei didn't seem to notice. "For anyone new, my name is Doctor James. I think we should all, you know, just go around the circle and tell everyone our names, and why we're here." This man was far too expressive with his hands, gesturing wildly to add emphasis to the slightest phrase. "Let's start to my left." He gestured to a skinny, frizzy red haired girl with an enormous amount of freckles.  
  
The girl mumbled something and began wringing her hands. "...suicide attempt..." That was all I was going to hear from her. A few more patients took their turns whining about their problems. I only paid attention to a few. The other times, I was either zoning out or watching Heero out of the corner of my eye. He never moved.  
  
My attention was caught by a slight, innocent-looking blonde boy. He was curled in his huge chair and his large blue eyes were nervously scanning everyone's face. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. Not that I've ever seen one. It's just an expression. He cleared his throat nervously. "My name is Quatre Raberba Winner." His voice was weak and nervous; nothing like Heero's. He started twisting his cream colored silk handkerchief in his hands. "I'm here because when my father died, my sister's got worried about me. They fear I may have depression."  
  
"And do you believe you have depression, Quatre?" Shar pei gestured at the group in general. "Please tell us how you feel."  
  
"I suppose it is possible. I haven't been myself lately. I just want help to get over my father's passing."  
  
"Well, it's good to remember you have sisters who care. How many sisters?"  
  
"Ummm...twenty-nine, actually." Quatre lowered his eyes. Geez. How did someone *get* so many sisters? "And I am very happy that some of them care so much about me." He perked up and a sparkle came to his eyes. This guy was just too sweet for words. And too sweet for my taste. I don't like people like that. They get annoying sometimes, so I ignored him for a moment, and worried myself with the guy next to him. He was tall and lanky, with a set of bangs I'd never seen anything like in my life. It was like they defied the laws of gravity, sticking out like that. I'm serious. They stuck out almost horizontally from his head, obscuring one eye. I wondered how he could watch TV with them. Maybe he only saw half the screen. He was funny to look at, but there was something in those eyes. Something that told me not to make fun of him, lest I want to attend my own funeral. Yipes... He refused to talk at first, mindlessly staring off into space. Shar pei continued to calmly ask his name.  
  
"Nanashi. No name." No name? Alright. That's fine. I can deal with that. Just so long as he's happy and not coming after me to rip my head off and shove it down my neck. I'll *gladly* call him Nanashi. I grinned at him. He didn't notice.  
  
"It says here your name is Trowa Barton. Is that your name?" Trowa Barton? Alright. Maybe I'll call him Trowa. It's a nice name. I can't imagine why he'd disown it.  
  
"Alright." He cast a glance at the blonde next to him, who was staring back with eager, wide eyes and smiling. I quirked an eyebrow. Like *that* wasn't obvious. I can see it in your eyes, Quatre. I smiled and rest my face in my hand. It was cute, almost.  
  
For a moment, I didn't notice Heero glaring at me. I finally felt his eyes burning a hole in my head and turned to face him. He looked pissed. Apparently, I'd rested my elbow on his hand. I slowly removed it and gave him an apologetic smile.  
  
"Hn." He grunted and glared at me.  
  
"So, what do you think of these guys so far? Pretty weird, ne?" No response. He just stared at me. "Not like us, ne? We don't have problems." I snickered a little. I could tell he was repressing a smirk. I could see it in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched.  
  
I turned my line of sight from Heero's intense eyes to another guy across the circle from me. He was glaring at everyone like he wanted to blow up the place. He had black hair tied back in an amazingly tight ponytail at the nape of his neck and black, slanted eyes. He stopped glaring at everyone else and began glaring at me. I raised my eyebrows at him. "That guy's staring at me." I nudged Heero.  
  
"Maybe he likes you." Heero raised an eyebrow at me. My eyes got huge and I busted out laughing. Heero didn't laugh. Neither did anyone else.  
  
"Is there a problem over there?" Shar pei was looking curiously at me. Everyone else was staring at me like I was crazy. Great. I'm in a mental institute and now I'm busting out laughing and making everyone believe I've totally lost it. This is not what I needed right now.  
  
I controlled my laughter with a hand and waved a dismissive gesture at Shar pei. "Everything's fine. I was just...remembering something funny." I grinned widely. He didn't seem convinced, popping up that eyebrow like that, but he accepted my lame excuse.  
  
"If you can't get under control, you can go sit in quiet time." Quiet time? I started laughing again. Heero shifted in his seat. I could tell my laughter was contagious. Quatre was giggling and nudging Trowa. The black haired boy was still glaring at me, but he smirked a little. "Okay, go sit in quiet time."  
  
I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop laughing, and that dumbass wouldn't quit trying to make me laugh. I couldn't walk, I was laughing so hard. I looked over and Heero was covering his mouth with his hand, muffling his laughter as well. That made me laugh even harder, seeing him like that. He looked like he'd burst if he didn't take a breath. Quatre was wailing with laughter. A few others were snickering as well, but I was the only one rolling around on the floor like a dog. "Mary, could we get someone in here to take him to seclusion?" Seclusion? Holy shit!  
  
I got up and immediately wiped the smile off my face. I couldn't be put in seclusion. I can't stand being alone, much less in a tiny little padded room. I started looking around for somewhere to escape to, not that I thought I'd find anywhere to go. Two big, burly men were walking towards me. I started breathing faster, and I could feel my face begin to sweat.  
  
"Daijouba ka, Duo?" Heero grabbed my arm and I stared at him like he was a ghost. He actually looked worried. I shook my head and whipped around when I felt a large hand on my shoulder. One of those gorilla men was hovering over me.  
  
"Come on, you." The other gorilla grabbed my shoulder. I freaked and started screaming like mad. "Calm down, dammit." I tried my best to fight them off. I broke loose of the tight grip on my shoulder and punched the other guy with my free hand. I'm pretty sure I broke his nose.  
  
Some pink lights on the ceiling started flashing and I heard an announcement being made. "Code Pink. Code Pink. South Wing." A few more guys came through the heavy door from the nurse's station and started running at me. I stood up on my chair and kicked the gorrilla with the already broken nose. He fell to the floor in a pained heap. I kicked the other gorilla a few times in the face, then jumped back down off my chair and kneed him in the groin, sending him into a pathetic ball of pain on the floor, writhing and wimpering.  
  
The large room turned to complete havoc, with gorilla men chasing after me, me running around like crazy, and a few of the other patients screaming while some of them joined the fight. I fell to the floor when a large gorilla guy toppled on top of me and pinned my arms. I kicked as much as I could to try and stop the others from pinning my legs. The heavy weight was lifted from my body as Heero punched him square in the jaw and pulled me from the floor by my braid.  
  
"You certainly have started something, here." Heero gave a light tug on the braid still in his hand. We looked around the room. Most of the gorilla guys were shuffling the wild patients back into their rooms while the others were fighting off attacks from the patients. I saw Trowa pick up a chair and hurl it at one of the men who was going after Quatre who was hiding under a table. How he'd picked up that damned heavy chair like that was beyond me. The black haired chinese boy was kicking some ass, karate style. He did a roundhouse kick and knocked down two guys. It was cool.  
  
"I didn't mean to! I just don't want to be put in seclusion!" I screamed as another gorilla man jumped me from behind and pinned me again. Heero's arms got grabbed from behind before he could help me. I saw him fight off two of them, but they quickly had him pinned on the floor, too, right in front of my face. We stared at each other for a moment. I bet I looked pathetic. I was nearly crying from fear, but boys don't cry, so I screamed through my clenched teeth. I felt something stick me in my hip and after a few seconds, my body went limp. I tried to move and kick and scream as they picked me up by my arms and legs and carried me into a tiny cell, but my body wouldn't listen to me. I caught a last glimpse of Heero before they got me in the room. He was being given an injection as well. He had five guys on top of him, but he was still able to move and punch and kick. The woman with the needle had a time trying to get him to hold still long enough to jab him with it.  
  
When they got me in the room, they laid me on a small, white sheeted bed and put restraints on my arms. Then they put a thick, leather belt around my waist and some restraints on my ankles. I could easily get out of these pathetic straps, if my body wasn't temporarily immobile. I could barely move my face. Whatever they'd given me, it'd worked. And fast.  
  
Damn. Now I was alone, and strapped down, and the room seemed to be getting smaller by the millisecond. I felt the walls caving in on me. I tried to calm myself down. Last thing I needed now was to hyperventilate and pass out. 'Come on, Duo. Everything's fine. Just stay calm, and you'll get out of this eventually.' Yeah right... I'd probably be in here forever, having broken so many people's noses like that. They'd be pissed at me for awhile.  
  
I looked at the ceiling. There was a type of skylight over my face and an extremely bright light on over my stomach. That was it. The ceiling was plain white, as were the walls and probably the floor as well. No designs, no patterns. Just plain, smooth, still white. It was way too bright for me, so I closed my eyes. It was hot in there, and I started sweating a little. I took a deep breath and tried my best to stay calm, which was very hard for me. It took all my strength not to start screaming like mad and biting off my own arms and legs to get them free. That is, if I could move.  
  
Speaking of which...I tried to move my fingers. No dice. One finger twitched a little, but that's it. I wasn't happy. All I could do was close my eyes. I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I opened my eyes again, the skylight above my head was dark. It must be nighttime outside.  
  
The door in my tiny cell room opened and yellow light cascaded across my face and the bed. The door was above my head where I was laying, so I had no clue who was coming in my cell. I hoped like hell they weren't going to give me some more of that shit they'd pumped into me earlier. "Duo, are you ready to be released yet?"  
  
That voice sounded familiar. I'd guessed it was the doctor I'd talked to earlier. The female one. "Doctor...?"  
  
"Sheryl Taylor. Do you remember me from earlier?" She walked over and stood above me, where I could see her. Yeah, I remembered her. Who could forget those ridiculous glasses?  
  
"Yeah. And, yes, I'd *really* like to get out of this damned room. I hate being alone, and I think I'm a little claustrophobic. And the light in here is too bright. And the walls are all really bright white and I don't like white very much." Yeah, I was talking alot, but I hadn't takled much in a while and I needed to get it out of my system.  
  
"Okay, I think we can at least get those straps off of you now, if you'll promise not to hurt anyone else."  
  
Promise? That's all I had to do. Great. "I promise. I won't hurt anyone." I gave her my 'genuine' smile. She smiled back and started undoing my restraints.  
  
When I was released, I sat up and rubbed my wrists. They were a little red. Those sons of bitches strapped me in too tight. Jerks. "Now, Duo. I'd like to talk to you now about why you're here."  
  
I sighed. I didn't really feel like talking to her about it, but this woman was obviously very persistent, so I may as well give in, ne? "Whatever. I'm here because I tried to kill myself. I got caught. I got sent here. Is that good enough?"  
  
"Yes, but why did you try to kill yourself?"  
  
"I wanted to see what would happen."  
  
"Do you ever feel depressed?"  
  
"No. I'm perfectly happy with my life."  
  
"Even though you have no parents and live in an orphanage?"  
  
"Father Maxwell and Sister Helen are my parents. I'm happy with them."  
  
"Are you sure?" Damn, this woman was getting on my nerves.  
  
"Positive."  
  
"Do you ever have trouble getting up in the morning? Sleeping? Doing everyday tasks? Eating? Feel like you're worthless? Feel hopeless?"  
  
"No." I quirked an eyebrow at her. How many damn questions did she have to ask me? It was getting really annoying. I didn't think she'd ever figure out that I wasn't depressed. She seemed stuck on that idea. Maybe I was, but I wasn't about to tell her that. It was my business, and no one else's.  
  
She sighed. "Okay, Duo. I'm going to put you on some antidepressants. Your diagnosis is depression and unhealthy obsession with death." I couldn't help but smirk at that one. Unhealthy obsession with death? I *was* death! How could I be obsessed with myself? She looked at me like I was showing some sign that she was right. What a know-it-all bitch. How annoying. And she really *was* stuck on the idea of depression. I guess they automatically assume that you're depressed if you're pathetic enough to end up in a place like this.   
  
"You can go back to your room now." She waved a hand at me to follow her. The entire area on the way to my room was darkened, with only a few dim lights shining and a nurse sitting in front of the television in the meeting area. None of the other patients were up and all the doors were closed.  
  
"What time is it?" They didn't have any clocks around. Must be hard for those people who are time-oriented. Maybe they wanted to drive you insane in this place.  
  
"Nine-fourty. Lights out is at nine-thirty."  
  
We stopped in front of my door and she searched around for the key to unlock it. Some men were in the meeting area rearranging the chairs and cleaning up some messes. "That's not how we set the chairs! You have to put them...Duo, wait here a minute." She stomped off to show the men the correct way to set up the chairs and I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to the floor. I wanted to go back to sleep. My stomach made a gruesome sound at me. I hadn't eaten much at all today. I guess it made me sort of weak. The door across the hall opened slowly and the black haired chinese boy stuck his head out. He glared at me for a moment then opened the door fully and propped himself up against the frame.  
  
"Hey! I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell." Always the cheerful one. I had a feeling that if I didn't say something, we'd be sitting there staring at each other for a long while. "I saw you earlier today, when the fight was going on. You really kicked some ass. What's your name?"  
  
He stared at me a moment like he was hoping I'd disappear. "Wufei. Why are you in here?"  
  
"Eh..." I waved a dismissive hand at him. "They say I'm depressed. And some sort of an obsession with death."  
  
"They say everyone's depressed. That's the immediate diagnosis. It doesn't matter why you're here, you've got to be depressed. I'm depressed too." Well, he certainly was talking now. Getting up on his soapbox about depression. "There is no justice here. They immediately dope you up with as many pills as they can. They drug us out so that we can never leave here. No justice." He shook his head.  
  
"Why would they do that? I mean, why do they want to keep us here longer than we need?" This really didn't make much sense to me, because I thought the whole point of places like this was to get you better. Not that I had any problems.  
  
"This place is funded by the government. The more patients they have, the more money they get. It's as simple as that. Money." He shook his head again. I started to wonder why I didn't just break out of here, or something. This place sucked. I doubted the security was all that good, anyway.  
  
"Lights out was fifteen minutes ago, Wufei. Close your door." Wufei glared at her for a moment, then yawned, shrugged, and closed his door. "Now, Duo, let's get you to bed." She shifted up next to me and opened my door with her key.  
  
My room was empty. I'd expected Heero to be asleep in his bed. Or at least in the room, but it was empty. I was sort of disappointed. "Where's Heero? I mean, my roommate?"  
  
"Heero's still in seclusion. He's been very uncooperative."  
  
"Uncooperative?"  
  
"It's really none of your business, now is it? You have pants and a shirt to sleep in. You can put your dirty clothes in the bin outside your door and they'll be washed tonight."  
  
"Okay." She closed the door behind her, leaving me standing in a dark, cold, and very empty room. I was lonely. I walked over to my bed under the window and sat down in the lamplight shining in from outside. It cast a yellow light on my blue bedspread. There was a pair of flannel pants and a dark green tee shirt folded on my pillow. I removed my black clothing and put on the nightclothes. The pants made my legs itch and the shirt smelled funny. I took the pants off and decided to sleep in just the shirt. I didn't think anyone would mind; No one was here. Heero would probably be in seclusion all night if they hadn't let him out yet.  
  
I opened the door and tossed my clothes in the tiny plastic bin to my left. Wufei opened his door as I was closing mine, and I waved at him. He acknowledged my greeting with a jerk of his head and left down the hallway. Probably getting some water, or something. Hey, I made another friend. Happy day. I shrugged and turned around.  
  
Back in the room, I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. I wasn't very tired, not that I could sleep on this damned hard mattress anyway. It was like curling up on a pile of sharp rocks. There was too much light shining in my eyes, too. The streetlight was very bright, and very close to my window. If you could call it a window. There was a tiny-holed metal screen over a set of nearly shut blinds, over a window, most likely made of plastic. Of course, the blinds were turned on a downward slant so that *all* the light shined directly in my eyes.  
  
I rolled over in bed and shut my eyes tight, trying to slow my brain down so I could get some sleep. I was just drifting off when the room's door opened and a slim figure stepped in. 


	3. Default Chapter Title

I was just drifting off when the room's door opened and a slim figure stepped in. The light flooding into the room blinded me for a moment as my eyes futilely tried to focus. 

"Heero?" It was just a hunch, but I was right, and I got an affirmative, "Hn," from him. He stepped into the room and closed the dor behind him, relieving the strain from my eyes that were still trying to focus. As he made his way to his bed, the lamplight shining in from outside levelled out my eyesight and I began to make out his face. For a while, I thought they were just deep shadows, those black places on his face. They seemed to be an absolute nothingness in the darkness surrounding him, and I wanted to reach out and make sure it wasn't his very self disappearing into oblivion. 

He tiredly lowered himself onto the side of his bed, facing me. His face was still barely masked in darkness, but the lamplight cast a general glow about him and I finally realized what the shadows on his face were; blood. Blood and faint bruises that had yet to reach their peak of nauseating purple, blue, and black colorings. 

"Oh shit!" I sat upright in bed and flung the blankets off of me. "What the fuck happened?" He didn't answer me with words, but as I looked into his eyes, I saw a look of defeat. Something awful, and emberassing, and shameful had happened, and I doubted I could ever get him to tell me. He lowered his eyes to the floor and I went to the bathroom to retrieve a wet washcloth to clean the blood with. 

When I got back, he was laying down in his bed, his arms neatly folded over his chest as if he'd been trained to do so. I flicked on the small, bare light bulb that jutted out from the wall above his bed and winced at the brightness. Heero didn't react. 

As I got a closer look, I realized it wasn't as bad as the darkness had made it seem. There was a light cut on his left cheek, with a bit of bruising and swelling, his lip was busted, and there was a slightly deeper gash above his right eye than there was on his cheek. I was expecting to see a mangled, shredded face, bleeding and oozing from every gash and scrape. Needless to say, I was relieved that it was so mild. 

I dabbed at his lip silently as he just stared up at the ceiling. I began feeling a slight movement underneath me as I worked, leaning over his chest intently and blotting at his cuts. After I'd finished cleaning the cuts as much as I thought I could without causing any more pain, if he could even feel pain, I stared down at him. The movement continued, and it began to get on my nerves. "Heero?" No response. Not a flicker of anything. Just that movement. 

I finally leaned back and looked for what was flexing underneath me. Heero's hands were balled into fists, clenching, unclenching, mechanically. I was stunned. I looked back at his face and deeper into his eyes than I ever had before. They were so black and emotionless, yet somewhere, deep inside, there was a rage building, like a wave. It would form and pull and get larger and angrier until finally it waked, and swallowed up anything in its path, pulling it under and drowning it, until the wave itself succumbed to the ebb and flow and swallowed itself. 

I returned to my bed without another word and refused to sleep that night. Heero didn't sleep, either. 

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I'm awake when the nurse comes in to take our vitals. Same routine as yesterday. That's what I've already come to realize about places like these. Routine is the key to everything. Not just routine, but repetition, practice in the way of life. Practice makes perfect. Do one thing so many times and it becomes such a habit, you're forced by your own mind to adhere to it. That's the whole idea to keep us appearing sane: make us repetitive robotic clones. 

My second day here, and I already got this shit hole figured out. 

Breakfast comes so early, it seems, when you've been awake all night. I can literally feel the weight of sleep on my shoulders and I'm certain I've got such bags under my eyes it must look as if I'm the living dead, if you could call this living. 

I refuse to look at Heero. I'm afraid of what I might find in those eyes this morning. Perhaps the rage has subsided and he's back to his normal, antisocial self. Perhaps not. I don't want to think about not, so I choose to pick at my runny-powdered egg-like substance, burnt toast, and undercooked, sloppy bacon strips in silence. Not that you can actually pick at anything with these eating utensils. They're plastic spoons. That's the only thing we get to use at mealtime: forks. They must not trust us with plastic knives. We might try to cut ourselves, or gouge out an eye at the dinner table. That makes my stomach churn, so I decide to change my line of thought. 

I cast a glance at Heero, who is sitting next to me, same as yesterday. "G'morning Heero." I know it's meager, but I have to say something, right? How else am I ever going to know if he's plotting to kill me, or just the staff members? 

"Hn." He slurps an egg at me. I've yet to stomach one of those things, although I'd already nibbled at my toast. With the way they serve the food here, I'll probably lose ten or fifteen pounds by the time I get out. 

"Did you sleep good last night?" Geez, he can be hell to try and talk to. 

He stops poking at his food and faces me for a moment. The bruise on his cheek has became a tannish-brown around purple. The gash on his brow is not so lucky. He looks like he's been hit by a truck. "I don't sleep." 

I find this a little hard to believe, maybe even a little strange, so I quirk an eyebrow at him. His face remains stagnant. He must be serious. How anyone could go without sleeping was beyond me. I've come to find out that many things in this place are beyond me. When you really get down to it, I'm not on the same level as many other mental patients. I'm the sane one in the insane world. Really. 

I don't try talking to Heero for the remainder of breakfast. 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Only a week ago, if anyone had told me I'd be locked up in a mental institute, I would have punched them for implying that I needed help, yet here I sit. I'm locked up with a bunch of crazy adolescents. Thirteen of them, in fact. 

On a large dry erase board, which leans against a pillar in the living room, I've come to call the meeting room the living room, because it makes it feel more like home, everyone's name is written. Next to our names is our level. There are four different levels, and I'm on the first one, along with Heero. This means that we're restricted to the unit. No leaving these cramped spaces. Level two, you can leave the unit for up to thirty minutes, with an escort. You can go to the nurses' cafeteria for a real meal. I'm looking forward to that. On level three, you can leave the unit for an hour without an escort and go outside, but not leave the grounds of the hospital. Level four, you're taken out on short excursions away from the hospital with some nurses. I doubt I'll ever get to that level. 

To pass the time, we patients watch television in the tv room, a small, windowless room with chairs all over and a small, old television atop a beat-up tv stand. The room smells oddly like old cheese, and I prefer to go to the living room and play some games. 

Heero's in there, sitting with his fingers interlaced on the table top. He appears to be observing a game of chess between two other female patients. He can look so pissed off, even if he's not. It must just be the aura about him. 

I grab a deck of cards off the shelves to the side and sit down across the table from him. He stares at me quietly. "Wanna play?" I flash the deck of cards at him and he shrugs. 

"Rummy?" I start dealing the cards. 

"Fine with me," He takes up his eleven cards and proceeds to kick my ass at this game. Normally, I win every card game I play, I'm a real card hustler, but I've got nothing on this guy. Or maybe it's just luck. 

He beats me three to one games, and I take it well, shaking his hand after each game, when I'm actually suspicious of whether or not he's cheating, like me. 

During our fifth game, the chess game next to us erupts into a fight. The frizzy red-haired girl jumps out of her chair as the small, mousy girl flings the chess board off the table and proceeds to curse and pick up a chair. 

The lights on the ceiling begin to flash and the familiar announcement is made, "Code pink. Code pink. South wing." I hate whoever announces that. 

Those same familiar, nameless gorilla men come in and restrain the wailing temper tantrum, dragging her off to the seclusion room. She'll probably be there all day. 

After the girl is dragged into seclusion, everyone gets called in for lunch. Some stale, cold pizza, corn, and warm milk. I'm only able to stomach the milk and a few bites of pizza, but Heero eats it all. 

I still can't stop looking at those bruises on his face. I can't stop wondering what happened to him. If I could, I would savagely murder each person who hit him with my bare hands, ripping out their throats and gouging out their eyes with my fingernails. Perhaps I'm a bit to graphic when it comes to violence. Maybe that's another reason why I'm here, but I'm not crazy. 

After lunch, I try spending some time in the tv room. The cheese smell becomes tolerable after a few minutes, so I curl up to watch a very boring nature show. I'm saved from my boredom when Wufei comes in and begins stalking around behind me. 

"What's up?" I turn around and peer at him as if to say, 'Show yourself!' 

"You know what happened to your friend?" He seems rather proud to be saying this, and I suspect that he knows something I don't. 

"Heero?" 

"The one with the bruises." He smirks, "You know what happened to him?" 

"No." Asshole, if you know, then just tell me. 

"I do." 

"What?" 

Wufei pulls up a chair in front of me, between me and the nature show. He folds his arms on his knees and peers up at me. "Well, see, in this place, which is poorly run, and poorly staffed, some rather disquieting things sometimes happen between staff and patient. Your little friend was probably raped yesterday." 

I can't believe what I'm hearing! They raped him!? No! No, they couldn't have! I stand up from my seat and scowl down at him, giving him my evilest, threatening glare. "If you're lying to me, I'll kill you. If you're not," I grinned widely, "I'll kill whoever did it." 

He seems a bit surprised by the fact that I have openly threatened the life of a staff member. I don't give a fuck what I threatened. I always keep my promises, and I know the consequences that I could be facing. Heero's worth it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

On weekends, we have group in the meeting room. Weekdays, we have "recreational therapy." This is when we all sit down at tables and the dump some junk out of rickety cardboard boxes. We're expected to make something constructive out of this shit. 

So here I sit, pasting some popsicle sticks together in a pathetic attempt to make a house, or something of the like. Quatre sits across from me, smiling cheerily and painting a lovely, serene nature scene with watercolors. There's too much sunshine and cheeriness in that picture, and it begins to make me ill. Trowa's cutting some figures out of paper. He seems to be just as pissed at this place as the rest of us, minus the cheery Quatre. I doubt he could ever truly be angry at anyone, even if they were keeping him caged like an animal. He's been here four days, I've found out, and he's already up to level three. 

Heero nudges me in the side and gives me a look. He tilts his head up at Wufei, who's at the end of our rectangular table, sleeping. Heero picks up my bottle of paste and gestures to Wufei with it. I pick up a black magic marker and smirk at him. As I stalk over towards him silently, all I can think is "what's he going to do if he wakes up?" 

Quatre notices our little plot and gets Trowa's attention with a giggle. Heero proceeds to apply paste to Wufei's hair as I draw a mustache and pointy eyebrows on his face. I almost feel sorry for the guy. He doesn't wake up, luckily. 

As RT is finishing up, and the nurse comes in to make sure we're cleaning up, Wufei begins to stir. The other patients have already noticed what was done to him, and they anxiously await his becoming aware of his state. I feel as if I'm about to get killed. 

Wufei goes to scratch his head and immediately jerks his hand back. He's fully awake now and his face is turning a nice, bright shade of red as he tries to figure out what the hell's in his hair. "Who did THIS!!!??" 

I smile sheepishly and hope none of the crazies tattle on me. Heero, to my utter surprise, drops everything in his hands and steps forward, "I did." 

Wufei's face goes from a nice, bright shade of red to a purple haze of rage, and I think I can see smoke rising from his ears, metaphorically, that is. He lunges at Heero, drawn back for a punch. 

Then, the stupidest thing happens, I don't even think about it, it's just a reflex. I jump in front of Heero and catch the raging punch square on the jaw. I see sparks for a split second, but quickly recover and shove him away from me. I grab my jaw and glare at him, "You stupid fuck! It was a joke!" 

Wufei's eyes get wide. I don't think he comprehends this concept. "A joke?" He must not. 

"Holy shit, you dumb mother fucker!" When I get mad, my language follows suit. It becomes uncontrollable, so I've given up trying. 

The nurse steps between us and tells us both to get back to our rooms for time out. Those damn gorilla guys are hovering around the door, and I choose not to face them again, so I nod and begin to leave the room. 

I catch a glimpse of Heero before I leave. The look of utter surprise and confusion is clear, and I feel good that I stepped in front of him and took that punch. Perhaps I've earned some respect. Maybe even some friendship. 

Maybe he'll start talking to me more... 


	4. Default Chapter Title

Maybe he'll start talking to me more...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As I sit on my bed, idly twiddling my thumbs, I must grant myself one thing: Time out is not as bad as seclusion. Time out is spent in your room, a place that's familiar and not claustrophobically small, even if it is a tiny cell-like room with one window.  
  
I'm in there for, I'm guessing, ten or fifteen minutes before Heero opens my door. He tells me I can leave now. I shrug and continue twiddling my thumbs. I don't really feel like leaving this room, now that I'm used to it. I'm beginning to like the silence of being alone.  
  
Out of my room, people are everywhere I turn. They're constantly moving around and talking and the walls are a sickly off-white color that starts to get on your nerves when you look too closely at it. Perhaps I'm going stir crazy, cabin fever, although it's a little early for that. It's only my second day here. Or is it my third? Keeping track of time is already becoming a difficulty.  
  
Heero sits down on his bed across from me and our gazes lock. He looks as if he's expecting something. Probably expecting me to chatter like my usual self. Unfortunately, I don't feel like my usual self, and I don't feel like talking much. That's a first for me.  
  
I think this place is slowly getting to me. Being in here reminds you that you've got problems. All I ever think to myself anymore is 'You're crazy! That's why you're locked up!' It's a neverending affirmation to me. It's become my mantra. Being around crazy people, it rubs off on you, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm becoming just as crazy as all those other patients out there. Or maybe I'm just beginning to show my true self; what it's really like inside my head.  
  
It takes me a moment to realize that Heero is now sitting next to me on my bed. I must have been too caught up in my thoughts to notice. He's staring at me. His eyes are such a wonderfully dark blue. I've never really paid much attention to eye color before I met Heero. I begin to feel uncomfortable under the weight of his stare, but I still don't feel like breaking the silence.  
  
"Why did you do that?" Simple enough question, yet the answer is so difficult to conjure up.  
  
"I don't know." I shrug, "I guess I just didn't want him to punch you. It didn't hurt too bad. No need to thank me or anything." I hadn't meant for that to come out like that, or for it to sound so sarcastic. I feel like shit immediately afterwards, and he seems to be sneering at my attitude.  
  
"Hn. It wouldn't have hurt me, either. I stopped feeling pain years ago." This guy's getting weirder by the minute. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to lie, but I'm always willing to call someone's bluff.  
  
"Bullshit. Everyone feels pain."  
  
"Not me." I expect him to start sneering or laughing anytime soon, but not the slightest hint of emotion crosses his face. Maybe he's serious.  
  
"Prove it." Ha, got him there. There is no way to prove it in here. There's no way we can hurt ourselves. They don't give us the chance.  
  
He shrugs in a very nonchalant way, as if to shrug off the very weight of my immature idea. "Ninmu Ryoukai."  
  
Mission accepted, my ass. What is this guy playing at? He gets up from my bed and exits the room. I follow him down the hall and into the living room.  
  
A few people are sitting around drinking the cheap coffee that tastes like mud. You can only have the coffee if you're seventeen or older. If you're eighteen, you can smoke in the living room. They're not too health-conscious here. There's one girl sitting alone in a corner, curled up on the small, orange sofa, sipping her lukewarm coffee and smoking a ragged cigarette with a long trail of ashes at the tip.  
  
Heero walks over to stand in front of the girl, who doesn't even acknowledge our presence. He grabs the cigarette out of her hand and tips the ashes off into the ashtray resting on the girl's knee. She stares at him like he's crazy, but doesn't offer up a protest.  
  
Heero turns and faces me, looking very serious. He takes a drag on the cigarette and exhales the smoke, forming rings in the air that rise and drift off into nothingness. He then does something very disgusting, and very unexpected. He holds his arm out, palm up, and stabs the cigarette into the flesh of his wrist. I sneer as the scent of burning skin reaches my nose. I can hear the sizzling of the cigarette tip as it burns his wrist.  
  
I look up at Heero's face, searching for any sign of distress, yet there is none, and I find myself totally freaked out by this fact. "What the hell is wrong with you!? What are you, some kind of sociopath?" I slap the cigarette away from his wrist and it goes skidding along the floor.  
  
Heero begins to glare at me, and I can feel myself wanting to back away, but I stand my ground proudly. "You told me to prove that I feel no pain."  
  
"Well, why the fuck did you take me so literally? I didn't tell you to set yourself on fire, you damn freak!" That was a mistake. I really shouldn't have said that. I can see it in Heero's eyes, which are steadily beginning to flame with rage. I have the worst feeling I'm about to die.  
  
"Heero Yuy. Did you just put a cigarette out on your arm?" I turn to see a plump-looking nurse in the doorway. Next to her is a short little boy with glasses. He looks about twelve years old, although he must be at least fourteen to be here with the adolesents. Normally, I'd be angry that he'd just tattled on us, but I find myself silently thanking him, because he may have just prevented my murder.  
  
Heero nods very seriously at the nurse, but refuses to take his glare off of me.  
  
The nurse flings her husky arms up into the air, exasperated. "You see!? This is why we shouldn't allow smoking on the adolesent's unit! Come with me, and let's put some ice on it. Then you're going for a time out."  
  
Heero sneers at the nurse. "I don't need ice." He follows the nurse out into the hallway, and I can feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders when the door wheezes and clicks shut behind him.  
  
The girl on the couch next to me is lighting another cigarette, and the smell of it is making me nausious. I leave the living room and head over to the tv room, hoping that by the time Heero's released from time out, he's calmed down a bit and no longer wants to kill me.  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
Qautre and Trowa are sitting in front of the tv, completely absorbed in the news telecast being shown. They rarely let us watch anything in here besides news and nature shows. It gets boring.  
  
I stand in front of the tv and flick it off. Quatre raises his eyebrows at me and Trowa seems completely uninterested. "Don't you guys ever get bored doing nothing?"  
  
They stare at me. I stare back. After about five minutes, of staring, when I feel I can no longer stand still in front of these zombies, I leave the room. On my way out, I hear Qautre comment, "He's weird."  
  
Yeah right! Like *I'm* the weird one! Just because I'd rather do something than allow myself to turn into a zombie in front of the tv.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As I walk back and forth in the living room and peer over a few shoulders to eye the different games people are playing, a nurse enters the room carrying a tray. She stops at each table and hands each patient a small cup with a pill or two in it and a cup of water. I try to ignore this. I'd rather not watch as they dope up all of my fellow patients. I'd like to ignore it forever, but the nurse chooses to stop in front of me and hold out a cup with a small blue pill clicking about inside it.  
  
"What's this?" I stare up at her like she's the crazy one in the group. Like I'm really going to take this shit of my own free will.  
  
"Antidepressant." I was diagnosed wtih depression, yes, but I had no idea they were going to start me on some medication without my telling me. I take the cup and tilt my head back. The pill goes clinking down into my mouth and I take a couple sips of water.  
  
The nurse smiles at me, takes my cups, and walks away. After she's moved on to the next patient, I reach into my mouth and take the pill out from under my tongue. I palm it as I walk to the bathroom and toss it into the toilet. 


	5. Default Chapter Title

The nurse smiles at me, takes my cups, and walks away. After she's moved on to the next patient, I reach into my mouth and take the pill out from under my tongue. I palm it as I walk to the bathroom and toss it into the toilet.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The rest of the day, I decide to spend by myself, not to say that there's much of a day left anyway. Heero's been put in seclusion after he refused to sit for time out. He started fighting and threw one of the large pink plastic chairs through the nurses' station window. He must be pretty strong, because I think that's bullet-proof, plexiglass stuff; the unbreakable type.  
  
When I'd left the bathroom after disposing of my meds, all I saw was a large, protruding chair from the window before I got shuffled off to my room and away from all the commotion. I'd whispered to Wufei across the hall, and he informed me of what happened.  
  
Now, here I sit, carving my initials into the headboard of my bed with a pushpin I found under a chair in the living room. 'D. M.', I carve. I decide to write out my name, Duo Maxwell, underneath. There. Much better.  
  
It's so easy to get bored in a place like this, with nothing to do, no one to talk to. I doubt Heero'd want to talk to me now, anyway. He seemed pretty pissed at me before he'd got taken away for that stupid time out.  
  
I feel tired now, like there's something weighing down my shoulders. Something tangible. I close my eyes and try my best to fall asleep.  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
A quick knock sounds on my door before it's opened and a plump-faced nurse sticks her head in. "You can come out now, sweetie." Why do they all call me sweetie? Am I the only one they call sweetie around here, or is it everyone?  
  
I rise from my bed and wearily rub at my eyes. I must have gotten a little bit of sleep. I've got the feeling that I've been asleep for half an hour, tops, and I hate it. It feels like I'm a piece of shit that's been stepped on and squished, not that I really know how a piece of shit feels, I'm just assuming it feels similar.  
  
As I walk down the long hallway and make my way into the meeting room, I see Quatre and Trowa out of the corner of my eye. They're huddled together around some papers and seem to be in deep conversation. I ignore this fact and stride over to bother them.  
  
"Hi, guys. How's it going?" They stare at me as though I'm out of place. Maybe they're upset about me flicking off the tv earlier.  
  
"Fine. Umm...you're friends with Heero, right?" Quatre says, as he shuffles the papers into a neat pile and hands them to Trowa, who takes them and sets them on a nearby table.  
  
Friends. Yeah right. "I wouldn't exactly call us friends...we're okay, I guess, but...why do you ask?"  
  
Quatre eyes Trowa, who smirks at him in return. "You don't know? Heero escaped earlier. Didn't you hear all the noise out here about half an hour ago?"  
  
Dammit. I go to sleep for a little while and I miss all the action. "No. I was asleep."  
  
"Well, Heero's gone," Wufei popped up from, seemingly, out of nowhere, and stood beside me. "He'll probably be back in no time. They always catch those little runaways."  
  
I smirk at this and wrap my arm around Wufei's shoulder, ignoring the no physical contact rule. "Well, you don't know Heero that well, do you? I bet he's long gone by now. They'll never catch him."  
  
Wufei decides to laugh in my face at this, so that I can smell his lunch still on his breath, and pushes my arm from his shoulder. "Geez, you really are knew to these places, aren't you. *No one* ever escapes a mental facility. Especially not this one. There's no way anyone can get very far on foot. Even your precious Heero Yuy."  
  
I sneer at him and set myself down into a pink plastic chair. I pull my braid around from behind me and chew on it absentmindedly. Wufei shrugs and walks away, but Quatre and Trowa remain in the chairs beside me, staring blankly. They must be waiting for me to say something. I've never been one to let a person down.  
  
"What do you guys think?"  
  
Trowa shrugs at me, "I think they'll catch him. Wufei's right." Quatre seems to not care to answer. Either that, or he has no opinion in the matter.  
  
"Well..." A thought begins to form in my head. The very beginnings of the stirrings of a thought of a plan begin to brew. "we'll just wait and see..." Yeah. You tell 'em, Duo. Heero'll make it.  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
As I'm playing chess wtih Wufei in the tv room, I hear some large amounts of commotion, not to mention a lot of screaming, out in the meeting room. I take Wufei's rook with my knight and get up to take a peak at what could be causing all the distraction.  
  
Upon opening the door just a tad and sticking my head out, I see Heero, kicking and screaming and causing a major chaos as he's being literally carried through the room and down the hall towards the seclusion rooms.  
  
Heero jerks one of his legs free and proceeds to kick one of the husky men in the jaw. A bit of blood sprays the off-white walls and a tooth goes scattering across the slick tile floor. This makes all of the other men go into a panic and they release Heero for a moment in an attempt to pin him on the floor.  
  
Heero seizes the opportunity of loosened grips and begins to wrench his limbs free. When he gets his right arm free, he immediately punches one of the guys in the face and sends him reeling, and more blood splattering.  
  
I watch all this in fascination, feeling a strange need to join the fight, although I know it would be a bad idea. I don't want to get put in seclusion again.  
  
Two of the men jump at Heero simultaneously and they all three topple over onto the floor, Heero at the bottom, still kicking and punching and screaming. He has a wonderful screaming voice. It sounds so rough and angered and passionate. It's almost a turn on to see him fighting like that, and kicking ass, too.  
  
A third hefty man joins the pile and Heero seems to be thoroughly pinned. I can't stand it anymore and I fling open the door and run at the pile. One of the men looks up at me and I grit my teeth at him right before I plow into him and knock him off of the pile. He lays on the floor underneath me, completely stupefied, and I take my chance and punch him as hard as I can directly in the face. My hand makes contact with a sickening crunch. I don't know if it was my hand or his face that cracked, but my hand sure hurts like hell. Luckily, I punched him hard enough to knock him out. If my face looked like his does right now, I'd want to be unconscious myself.  
  
While I'm still straddling this unconscious jerk, hardly believing what I'd just done, Heero's kicking the other two off and charging after one of the spectators, the guys who were supposed to be doing their jobs and assisting in the capture, but are either too stupid or too scared. He knees him in the groin and then comes down hard on the back of his neck with both fists. The guy falls to the floor, curled into a little ball and grasping his stomach and crotch. I think he's wimpering. So pathetic.  
  
I finally come to my senses when one of the men run at me and knock me off my sitting place of the other man's chest. The tile floors send me sliding away slightly, just out of the guys reach, who seems to has busted his jaw on the floor. What an idiot. I quickly jump to my feet and kick him in the face, though it doesn't seem to have an effect, as he's quickly on his feet and chasing me down the long corridor of rooms. At the end of the hall is a small, cheaply padded pole. I slow down to the point that the man is barely out of reach of my braid. Just as he reaches out to grab me, I grab onto the pole and swing myself around it. He loses his balance trying to catch me and goes hurdling into the door with the green-lighted exit sign above it. That door is nailed shut and never opens.  
  
Unfortunately, that's not enough to stop him, and he's quickly on my tail again. I suddenly can't resist the urge, and I turn around, now running backwards, and stick my tongue out at him as I wriggle my fingers at him. I'm already far down the hall, so he has no chance of catching me.  
  
I slam into someone while I'm running backwards, and I see blackness around the rims of my vision. I'm able to keep my balance, though the person I ran into is on the floor and is now sweeping my legs out from under me. I'm on the floor and on my back, which now hurts as bad as my cracked hand, and someone is on top of me and strangling me. He's actually choking me, calling me a little shit faced mother fucked. I think I must have pissed him off. I close my eyes tight and scratch at his hands. I can feel the flesh peeling away roughly under my short fingernails. It gathers in little rolls and I feel the warmth of blood trailing after it.  
  
The weight is suddenly lifted from me, though he feels like taking me with him, wherever he's going, and he scrathes deep gashes along my neck and collarbone. He must have had some damn long fingernails, or some tacky jewelry. I open my eyes, first checking out the blood, then looking to my left, where the large man lay sprawled against the wall and on the floor, knocked out. I look to my right and see Heero, breathing raggedly, his shirt front ripped down and revealing half of his chest, which seems to be well-beaten and bruised harshly. His hair is messier than usual, and I've never seen anyone look more dangerously sexy than he does right now.  
  
This vision of testosterone is quickly destroyed as he gets tackled from behind and is sent to sprawl across my abdomen. He struggles to push himself off of me, one hand to the right of my head, one to the left of my stomach. His face is at my left shoulder and I can barely see him as he grits his teeth and shoves roughly at the floor. I try my best to get my arms around him and shove at the hulking, bewhiskered man above me. He grabs one of my arms and pins it to the floor as another two men join him in pinning us down. Heero's face gets slammed into the floor at my shoulder as the two join. I can hear someone calling for some long-named drug that I'd never be able to pronounce correctly. Probably that shit they gave us earlier. I don't want to be paralyzed again!  
  
A fourth man joins the pile and I feel the air being forced from my lunges under the pressure. I feel extremely scared and lose all thoughts as I close my eyes tightly and gasp silently for air. Heero pushes even harder on the floor, relieving some of the pressure, and I find myself able to breath again. I open my eyes and Heero's are directly in front of mine, bearing down harshly. He looks in great pain and I find myself wanting to protect him, wanting to become super-strong and get him out of all this trouble. I'm scared of what they're going to do to him. I want to keep him safe, and I believe somehow, deep down, he wants the same for me. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.  
  
A woman in a long white coat scrambles over to hover over me, jabbing a needle into a bottle and extracting some vile greenish-tinted liquid from it. She taps it a few times, squirts some out up at the ceiling, and begins to lower it towards Heero. Heero's face down, so he can't see it coming, but the look in my eyes must give it away. He begins to squirm violently and roughly, and the men on top of us bear down even harder to restrain him. Even with all of the pressure they must be exerting, I still have plenty of room to breath.  
  
The woman goes for Heero's bare shoulder, trying to hold him still to stab him with the needle. I swat at her hand and kick at her with my one free leg, though it doesn't make contact. She spits something out at me about letting her do her job and gets frustrated enough to move to a lower region on Heero's body: his butt. This is a huge mistake, seeing as how it's closer to my free leg, and I kick her in the head right off. She curses and slaps at my leg, then one of the four men holds it down. I start swatting at her with my left arm, though she's out of reach. There's nothing I can do. Heero continues to squirm and kick violently on top of me as the woman pulls down his spandex shorts, exposing a muscled thigh, and jabs the needle into his hip.  
  
She draws back and begins to fill a new needle for my unholy injection. I don't care anymore. They've got Heero, I may as well give up. The men lessen the pressure as Heero begins to slow down. He lifts his head and looks directly at me. He has a look af anger and defeat in his eyes that I've never seen in all my life. It pisses me off even more than I already am and I begin rolling off insults at the sons of bitches in this place. I call them names I've never heard before in languages I don't even think I know.  
  
Heero's body begins to go limp on top of me and his head falls onto my chest. I can feel his labored breathing on my neck and his hand comes up to my face. He puts his fingers on my lips and holds my mouth closed. I continue flailing futiley my immobile limbs as the woman lowers the needle to my arm and exposes my upper arm. Heero breaths something onto my neck and I strain to listen. "Wait. Just wait." He says as the woman finally jabs the needle into my arm.  
  
I stop fighting and relax slightly as I feel the fluid entering my veins. What Heero said begins to run through my head. "Just wait." What does he mean? Wait for what? I can feel my body go numb and tingly as the drug works its way through my system. It starts in my fingers and travels up my arm, to my chest, where it quickly spreads to all parts of my body, before I feel nothing at all and am unable to control movements.  
  
The men remain ontop of us, pinning Heero to my chest. He seems to have fallen asleep, or perhaps this drug is supposed to cause that. After what seems like an eternity, and the drug has worked its way thoroughly through me to the point of total numbness and near slumber, they begin to remove themselves from us. Heero is placid on my chest, breathing deeply, and his face is starting to look a bit too pale, his lips too bluish. It worries me, but there's little I can do about it.  
  
Two men grab Heero's arms and pull him off of me. His head lolls and sways loosely, his hair covering his eyes and obscuring my view of his slack face. They drag him down the hall, his scraping loosely along the floor behind him. I'm immobile on the floor, though I'm able to barely lift my head and look around. Wufei, Quatre, Trowa, and some nameless girls are all standing around watching the display. I don't fail to notice the superior look across Wufei's face. Yeah, he was right. Heero got caught. So what?  
  
Two men grab my arms and drag me behind Heero down the hall to the seclusion room. My butt gets tingly sensations in it as it scraped along the cold, smooth tile floor. It feels kinda neat. 


	6. Default Chapter Title

Two men grab my arms and drag me behind Heero down the hall to the seclusion room. My butt gets tingly sensations in it as it scraped along the cold, smooth tile floor. It feels kinda neat. 

I pass out on the way into the room, so I am saved from having to go through the torture of that blaring bright light above my head. A small bit of pity for me on God's part...if there is a God. 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

When I finally wake back up, I feel as if I've been asleep for roughly a week. My eyes don't want to stay open, they're amazingly sensitive to the light now, and my arms and legs are, of course, strapped down to the bed. I groan a bit and attempt to move some portion of my body just to make sure it's still capable of mobility. 

I lift my butt off the bed and feel an amazing relief of pressure. My entire back is numb and tingly. Just how long have I been in here? 

Lucky me, I get my answers in the form of a female nursing intern. She's young, in college, not yet sure of herself in this field of study. So easy to recognize and even easier to manipulate. I can't help but grin as she taps her thin-rimmed glasses up her nose and flips her mousey brown hair over her shoulder. 

"Hello there," I say with a grin in a sing-song voice. I think I'll go for sympathy with this girl. She seems to be just oh-so-sweet. Probably ignored in high school and would drool over any guy who shows interest. Poor thing, but we gotta do what we gotta do, right? 

She smiles at me and extends her hand, before realizing I'm still strapped down to the bed. She saves herself from embarassment by pretending to brush off her pant leg. "Hello, I'm Sarah. I'm an intern for the University of..." 

I don't care about where she's from, what she's doing here, or why she's talking to me. I feel like being selfish today, so I interrupt her. "How long have I been strapped down here?" 

She blinks at me a few times, seemingly startled by my rudeness, and flips through some pages on the plastic clipboard she's carrying. "Ummm, since yesterday. Around four o'clock. You missed dinner and breakfast this morning because you were asleep." 

I close my eyes and try to pout a bit, "I wasn't asleep. They drugged me." 

She nibbles on her bottom lip a bit. I think I may already be getting to her. "Sorry," she says with very little sincerity. 

"So, Sarah, what would you say to getting these straps off of me, huh?" I flash her an overly large and cheery grin. 

She doesn't seem to have a problem with it and quickly removes the cuffs and straps and buckles. They were all too tight and they all left pinkish, raw marks on my skin. I wink at her and she blushes a bit. I love flirting with these susceptible females. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of cheuvanistic male who cheats in every relationship. It's just that when I get the opportunity to fuck with someone's head, I take it. Game on! 

Maybe I can get some good things out of this girl. She seems to like me enough for some small favors. We have a nice, long conversation wherein I mention how much I miss chocolate, the fact that they'd stolen my sole posession, the cross around my neck, the fact that the food here is awful and I've already lost five pounds. I don't specifically ask her to do anything. I just hint and nudge and play with words. I also flirt shamelessly. Within minutes, she's puddy in my hand. Damn I'm good. I have no doubt I'll be getting some special deliveries sometime soon. 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

After spending nearly half an hour in the seclusion room talking to Sarah, I'm released. It's almost lunch time and my stomach is roaring. I think I'll forcefeed myself today, if I have to. I need food! 

When lunch finally arrives, I grab my tray of thick spaghetti noodles topped with a strange reddish sauce and sit at mine and Heero's table, though he's nowhere to be seen. I'm beginning to worry about him by now. What if they bruise him again. I silently vow to myself that if he's hurt in any way, I'll kill every last one of these sons of bitches here. 

For the first time ever, some people come and sit in the chairs around me. I look up as they're scratching them out away from the table and taking their seats in them. It's Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei. I smile at them for a moment before resuming the picking-at of my plump spaghetti noodles. 

Quatre smiles at me, "How are you doing, Duo?" For a minute I wonder how he knew my name. Did I even tell him? I don't think I've told anyone but Wufei and Heero. That's it. Wufei must have told them my name. 

I look up at him over my plastic spoon piled with pasta. "Fine, I guess." I begin to wonder what they want from me, coming over here like they're my friends. I hardly even like them. I dislike everyone in this place, besides Heero, that is. Heero's okay. I begin to wonder and worry about Heero again. What Wufei said is really getting to me. The idea that they could rape him just refuses to register with me. Never in my life would I ever be able to imagine Heero being raped by anyone. It's all too much for my brain to digest. 

"I want to get out of here." It was the first thought that came over me when I started thinking about Heero again. I wanted us both out of here. 

Quatre and Trowa both look at me oddly, "What?" 

"He said he wants to get out of here!" Wufei yells at them as if they were deaf. "I think it's a good idea, but tell me...How exactly do you plan on getting out? You've already seen that Heero can't even..." 

"That's just it!" I interrupt excitedly. A wonderous plan suddenly bubbles up in my head, ideas pouring from a plethora of intelligence I never knew I had. "The fact that he could leave the building. That fact alone gives us a chance! If we all help each other..." 

"We who?" Quatre looks at me as if I'm talking in tongues. 

"Well, I thought maybe you guys would want to get out with us. Heero and I." 

Wufei immediately agrees with me, though he seems the kind of crazy person who'd try anything just to cause problems. Trowa seems to disect the proposition, weighing the good with the bad, before answering, "This place is not really helping anyone anyway. Perhaps it would be better if we all left. If we don't, we could very well be here for months." 

Quatre begins to bite his bottom lip and fiddle with the food on his tray. "Well, I have no reason to leave. I'm getting plenty of help." 

Wufei immediately interjects, "That's because you're rich, Quatre!" I raise my eyebrows in surprise. 

"No one was supposed to know about that." He seems to get a little nervous under all the staring eyes. 

I can't help but wonder, "If you're rich, what the hell are you doing in a piss-ass place like this?" 

"It's the closest one to my home. It was actually recommended." 

"By who?" Wufei crosses his arms over his chest in disbelief. 

"Umm...actually, I don't know." 

"Well, that settles it! We all need to break out of here! I just can't stand it anymore. Wufei, you said no one can get far on foot, but what about in a vehicle!? I can hotwire a car! I know how. We can do that. When Heero gets out, I'll find out how he escaped and we'll just try that way. And we'll keep trying. If we get caught, we'll just try it again and again until we get out for good!" The words were literally pouring out of my mouth and everyone else sat in awe as I went on babbling mindlessly. 

"That settles it, right?" I smile and place my hand in the middle of our small circle surrounding the table. "We're all getting out of here together?" 

Wufei immediately puts his hand on top of mine, "Right!" Trowa follows and places his hand on Wufei's with a nod of his head. 

Quatre drops his spoon to his plate, picks it back up, and drops it again. Trowa looks at him a moment before giving him an encouraging smile. Quatre smiles weakly back and timidly places his hand over Trowa's. 

I smile triumphantly. So, they're all with me. And now I promise we'll all get out of here soon before adding, "All of us! Heero especially." 

~~~~~~~~~ 

That night, after dinner, Heero is released from the seclusion room. I'm alone on the small porch, looking through the screens and bars at the traffic that roars by on the road nearby. How I wish to be one of those people. I want to be normal and just go driving down the road to nowhere. Just get in a car and drive, the unknown future plummeting towards me, and I, Shinigami, embracing it with my wide open arms of death. 

Heero walks onto the porch silently and sits down in a chair next to me. They're huge plastic rocking chairs, though they don't rock very well. They're too heavy, I suppose. He sits quietly with his arms crossed and stares at me. I feel his eyes burning into me, so I turn around to stare back. "Are you okay?" I ask when he doesn't move. He's not bruised and he doesn't look hurt in any way, but he's silent and still. His eyes look as if they're too tired to even close. Like that action alone would wear him out. I feel waves of anger radiating off him. He reminds me of a rubber band being stretched, he's just about ready to snap. 

"Hai." 

"Heero, listen," I begin, resting my hands atop the table sitting between us. "We're getting out of here." He doesn't seem to care much. He just stares at me as if I haven't been speaking at all. 

"We, who?" he finally asks after awhile. 

"Me, you, Quatre, Trowa and Wufei," I reply. I can't help but smile proudly. He stares at me a few more moments as I stare back into his eyes. I listen to the sounds outside. A light rain has started to fall and it's getting colder out here. The rain makes pattering sounds on the moist ground and the leaves outside and it turns into a hypnotic type of music that relaxes me greatly. 

"When?" he asks me, knocking me out of my rainy daze. 

"Well, as soon as we can. All I need is to find out how you got out of here the first time, then we're going to hot wire a car, well, I am, and we're going to drive the hell out of here." Again, I'm excited by my idea and the words spill out hastenedly. 

He stares at me a little longer and I begin to wonder if I have something stuck on my face from dinner, so I rub at my chin. That reminds me. "Heero, you didn't get dinner, so I saved this for you from mine." I reach into my pocket and pull out the wad of bread with crusty cheese melted on top that came with my spaghetti. Spaghetti for lunch, spaghetti for dinner. Yummy... leftovers. He gives me a glimpse of a smile and takes the bread. I watch him eat it slowly. I can only imagine how hungry he must be. He's eaten even less than me, having been in seclusion so long. 

That something else I don't like about this place; They'll starve you. If you're not there to eat, you don't eat. Simple as that. Well, screw them. They're not going to starve *this* guy! They can kiss my bony ass. And it is bony. It's getting even bonier in this place. I've noticed I've been losing weight. They do weigh us, but they don't let us look at the scale as they do. We have to turn our backs to it. I'm not that easy to keep a secret from, though. I snuck in and read my chart. I have lost around five pounds. My face is getting thinner; my cheekbones are becoming defined. They used to be chubby. It was baby fat, I swear! 

Well, maybe they'll realize I'm starving to death and give me some real food. Maybe not. 

After Heero finishes mousily nibbling the bread I gave him, he looks at me as if he expects me to say something important and meaningful. Of course, I don't. I jsut stare back at him. I don't know what to say. I thought it was his turn to talk. He needs to tell me how the hell he snuck out of here, and tell me that he *wants* to sneak out of here again. I hope more than almost anything that he does. 

"We'll go in three days during the time they're switching shifts. That's six o'clock," he says flatly while staring down at the table. 

"Really? You really want to?" I ask and he nods. "Great!" I shout. This is great we're getting out! I can hardly contain my excitement. I can't wait. "I'll go get the other three. We'll plan it out." I say and I get up from my chair and start walking to the door. 

"No need," he calls to me from behind. "I already know what to do. All you need is to follow me. Just let them know when. I'll do the rest." 

I stop where I am and turn around to look at him. He looks back and gives me a nod to come over, so I sit back down in my chair and rest my arms on the table. He reaches over and puts his hand timidly on mine and my heart starts to race. I think my face turns red, but not from embarrassment. I'm excited and happy. 

He looks into my startled eyes and says, "Are you going to stay with me once we're out?" I can hardly think enough to answer, so I slowly nod my head. He smiles in return and stands up. I watch him leave the room, his muscled arms swaying tightly by his sides, his entire form being enveloped by the light shining through the door from inside. He's beautiful. 

~~~~~~ 

I stay outside on the porch for a long while, just staring at the rain falling on the leaves outside. Outside, where I want to be. Where I will be in three days. It seems like an eternity I've been in here. I can't even remember how long. A week? Two? A month? The days seem to flow together like watercolors. The nights come and I sleep, only to wake up in the morning for another day. Another week to lay catatonic in a chair and stare at the ceiling as everyone else's life speeds by me. I feel as if I'm so alone here. I'm in this tiny little room with no one around and I scream, but no one's there to hear me. No one's inside with me. I'm all alone. Why the fuck do I have to be so alone? 

I start to notice just how angry I am. I've been twisting my braid around my clenched hands and they cramp up. I release the braid and straighten my fingers out. They ache. Just how long had I been doing that? 

I hear a scream from inside and the same monotonous voice comes over the intercom, "Code pink. Code pink. South wing." I immediately have a feeling of dread as I rise from my chair to take a peek inside. 

Of course, there he is, Heero. He's fighting off some more of those guys. I've come to really hate those bulky men that gang up on us. Of course, they wouldn't do that if we just gave in and acted like good little boys and girls. But, what would be the fun in that? 

I'm really not in the mood for this right now, so I choose to just watch for a moment while Heero swings at another patient, but misses when he's pulled backwards off his feet and onto the floor. I wonder what that other guy did to deserve Heero hitting him. 

Heero's on the floor now, kicking and squirming under, what looks like, four guys. They're all piled ontop of each other, so it's hard to tell. I sigh loudly. I'm just not in the mood for a fight right now. Maybe I'll sit this one out. I mean, I just got out of seclusion. Why the hell should I go back. I turn away for a moment and try to concentrate on the sounds of the drizzling rain, but it's too cold out here and there's too much noise inside. I cover my ears from the noise and shiver to stay warm. I start humming a little tune that I make up as I go along. 

I continue with this for all of one minute before a loud crash comes from inside. I can't stand it anymore and I turn back to the door. Heero's being slammed repeatedly against the now bloodied windows of the nurses' station. I catch a glimpse of his face. That's where the blood is coming from and it's streaming down his face. He seems to have passed out, because he doesn't put up much of a fight as they continue to toss him against the glass. 

I suddenly feel absolutely furiated. I don't think I've ever been as angry as I am right now. My vision blurs and my thoughts become small and simple and hazy. Kill them. Kill them. 

It seems slow motion as I charge through the door and tackle two of the men onto the floor. The other two are ontop of me now, trying to pin me down. Not this time. There's no restraining me this time. 

I shove them off of me using my legs as leverage and they go plummeting backwards. Hah! You sons of bitches! Come and get me! 

"Come get me, assholes!" I scream. They all seem a bit startled by this, but come at me anyway. They're grabbing me from all sides, but I am somehow able to fight them off this time. I get free and run to one of the bulky pink plastic covered chairs. Then I do something I never dreamed I would be able to do. I pick up the chair and quickly hurl it at all four of the advancing men. I knock them all over with the blow. 

The lights that were flashing on the ceiling have turned red now. Another voice comes over the intercom. It's hurried and panicked. "Code Red. Code Red. South wing! Get some people down here fast!" 

Shit. Nurses and doctors stand by watching behind the safety of their plexiglass windows as four more men come barging through the doors. I start to panick. Maybe I can take on four, but eight? There's no way! 

Suddenly, Wufei is beside me. He gives me a look as all eight of the men advance on us in a circle. They're holding their hands out, telling us to calm down. No way! This place reeks of shit, and you're it! Game on! 

I laugh maniacally as I punch one of the guys square in the jaw and send him reeling. Wufei's got my back, apparently, so I continue to concentrate on killing my four guys. It's not that easy. They come at me all at once. Two grab my arms, the other two go for my legs and waist. I kick at them and squirm free and away. I run to the chairs and push one of them at the men. One of the guys gets tripped up on it, but the other four continue coming as I back away. 

Out of the corner out of my eye, I see two things in a single instant. Heero's gotten up from the floor and is wiping at his face and holding his head, Wufei's gotten pinned to the floor by his four. I can't take this anymore. 

I run over to the nurses' station and bust open the door. If it was locked, it didn't do much good. My adrenalin was flowing madly and there was no stopping me now. I run into the room and search around frantically for some sort of weapon as everyone backs away from me like I'm some kind of crazy, diseased animal. I am! I am an animal! Stay the fuck away from me, or I'll bite your leg of! 

The four men are in the station and are running at me. They grab me from behind around the waist, but they miss one of my arms. Hah! Then, in plain site, there's a needle. A needle, on the desk right in front of me. Nothing but air in it, but still. I strain to reach it. When I finally have it in my free hand, I relax a little. Those idiots think I've given up. As soon as they loosen their grips to get better grips on me, I lift my arms up and slide down out of their grasp. Shit! 

I run to that smart ass bitch, Doctor Shryl Taylor and grab her arm, jerking it behind her. She screams, panincking. I don't care. I suck air into the needle and jam it into the vein in her throat. Everything goes still and silent. Heero's staring at me through the glass, his eyes wide with surprise. 

"Get back!" I scream at everyone nearby. "Get back or I'll kill this damn bitch!" They don't seem to be listening. They've stopped advancing, but they're not getting back! "If I squeeze this needle, air goes into her blood and straight to her brain and she dies," I say calmly. "Now get the fuck BACK!" They comply and are slowly retreating, still asking me to let her go, to calm down, I'll not get away with this. Bull shit. I am, aren't I? 

"Heero! Get Wufei and Trowa and Quatre! Now!" He stares at me a minute before running to retrieve the three. In an instant, they're being shuffled through the nurses' station by Heero. Quatre looks as if he's ready to cry and Trowa looks pissed that I would go to such extreme measures. 

"Change of plans. We're leaving now," Heero says as he pushes them forward and stands beside me. 

"Here, take over this," I say and shove the doctor over to Heero. He grabs the needle and wraps an arm around her neck. I look around for a momentm then I spot it. On the wall, there's a map of the entire building. I find my way out and the exit and the parking lot before turing to the head nurse. At least, I think that's who she is. 

"I want all the doors open from here to the exit," I say as I search through some filing cabinets. I get to the bottom drawer and there it is, my precious possession. I grab my cross out of the draw with some other junk and place it around my neck. I kiss it and drop it to my chest. 

"Why are you still standing there!?" I scream at her. She panicks and runs over to a little control box with buttons and switches and lights that flash frantically. She punches in a few codes and pushes a few buttons, then turns around to nod at me. I flash her a grin as I hear a buzzer behind me sound. The door is unlocked. 

Wufei opens the door and shouts, "Let's get the fuck out of here!" I charge through ahead of them and lead the way. Heero takes up the rear, still dragging Doctor Sheryl with a needle jabbed into her vein. After rounding a few corners and threatening the doctor's life more than a few times to anyone who tried to stop us, we reach the exit and I fling open the glass doors. 

I take a deep breath of the icy air and feel the rain that blasts my face. It seems forever that I stand there, just feeling free. It's like being released from prison, or hell. I don't even know if either of those places would compare to this "mental health facility." 


	7. Default Chapter Title

I take a deep breath of the icy air and feel the rain that blasts my face. It seems forever that I stand there, just feeling free. It's like being released from prison, or hell. I don't even know if either of those places would compare to this "mental health facility." 

~~~~~~~~~ 

We run across the road of asphalt and to the parking lot, though Heero doesn't. He has to drag that damn woman by the hair to get her to move. So, here we are. I spot a car I like. It's a nice black sports car with black leather interior. Perfect for the God of Death. It's not even locked when I pull on the handle. Lucky me. The door pops right open and I crawl inside and stick my head down under the steering wheel. Time for me to get to work. 

"You boys won't get away with this," the doctor tries to yell at me. She only comes off sounding scratchy-voiced and scared shitless. 

I peer up to glare at her, when I see that behind us, the doors inside are filled with people. Doctors, nurses, security, even patients, have come out to watch our little escape. I feel great. I love getting attention, and this is probably the most I've ever gotten. No one's ever escaped from here before? Well, here's five people who have, so screw you! We're on our way out, and we're never coming back! 

A gun shot sounds and everything goes silent. I stop twisting wires around wires and look through the passenger door window. There's a large man weilding a pistol and pointing it straight at us. Apparently, he just shot in the air to get our attention. He can't have mine! I ignore him and continue to try and start the car. Is it the red to the green? The blue to the red? Damn my memory to hell. The wires are exposed and I click two of them together to see what happens. No dice. The car doesn't start. Maybe it was yellow to red? 

"Heero Yuy, let the doctor go and put your hands in the air!" the man shouts at us, well, Heero. I take another look outside through the window, then I notice something I'd failed to notice before. The large man weilding the gun is a police officer. That's just great! Just great. Now we have police here to chase us. That's all I need right now to add to the pressure already mounting on my shoulders. 

"I've called in back-up! You won't get out of here! If you give up now, you may not face criminal charges!!" Who's he kidding? We're practically commiting every crime in the book. Attempted murder, kidnapping, auto theft, and then there's the little one... driving without a license. Ouch. That one will really destroy my driving record. My insurance will be sky high. I shrug to myself. Oh well. I wasn't planning on paying my insurance premiums anyway. 

"Go to hell!" Wufei shouts back at the officer from beside Heero. I stare as he jumps out in front and begins doing a little dance, shaking his ass in the guy's face and sticking his tongue out at him. How childish. I stick two wires together and Bingo! The car makes a little starting noise. Click, click, and there it goes. The car has started. Now we're in business! 

The man fires off the gun one more time and Wufei stops his victory dance. He ducks behind Heero for protection. Chicken. "Everyone get in the car. Heero, get rid of her!" I yell. Everyone but Heero complies. He stands there for a moment, staring the officer down. "Heero, now, dammit! We don't have much time!" He's not listening. Just waiting. Waiting for what? The officer points the gun straight at Heero. He looks pissed. I can see the side of Heero's face as he smiles widely. What the hell is he smiling about? 

Then I see it. Heero's grasp begins to tighten on the needle still lodged in Doctor Sheryl Taylor's throat. He squeezes, and air rushes into her neck. A tight ball of air that travels up and up her neck. Straight to her brain. She begins to convulse and Heero's still holding her hair and laughing. The doctor is still. She goes limp against Heero and he lets go of her hair, droppig her to the ground. She's dead. Heero killed her. The gun goes off again, and I'm afraid to look. I hear Quatre scream from behind. He's in the backseat, screaming like a mad man. I can't look up. I won't look up. 

My neck moves of its own accord and there it is, splattered all over the passenger door window: Heero's blood. Heero's been shot. He's still standing, but he's been shot. He opens the door and throws himself onto the seat and we speed off. Blood's pouring out all over the place. I can almost smell it. The smell of life mingling with death. This isn't happening. Oh, but it is. It is happening. And my friend's been shot. I crash through the locked gates and I hear the metal fence scratching against the car as it tumbles to the ground. I drive 105 in a 55 zone for a few mintues before I pull over and slam on the brakes. 

"Wufei! Take over driving. Trowa, help me get Heero in the backseat." They listen to me so well, as if I'm the only one who has any idea what to do. Wufei hops into the driver's seat and honks the horn, laughing madly. He's truly crazy. He doesn't even care that Heero's been shot. No time to worry about killing him for being an asshole now. Trowa helps me lay Heero down across the backseat and he and Quatre sit together in the front seat. I climb in and yell "Go!" and we take off again. I have a feeling Wufei's never driven a car before. He's swerving down the road, trying to stay on his side, with little success. 

I'm on the floorboard now, asking where he's been shot. He's not answering. I lift up his bloodied green tank shirt to see the wound. It's not as bad as it could have been. The bullet hit him on the right side of his stomach. It must not have went through, because the window was unharmed, so where is it? Did it get lodged inside? Did it fly in at an angle and jam itself into his spine? All these things continue to race through my brain as I grab a dirty rag off the floor and push hard on the hole in his side. He sucks in air at the action. I can ony imagine how a bullet plummeting into your stomach must feel. I've never been shot. I look at his face. He's biting his lip and his eyes are closed. There's tiny droplets of blood splattered on his face and I wipe them off with my hand. They're still wet and the blood stains my hand red. He opens his eyes at the gesture and watches my face as I still push on his wound. 

"Is it bad?" he asks, trying to sit up. I tell him to stay still and shake my head. "It's not as bad as it could've been. I think you'll live." I give him a smile. He seems to be pleased with this information and smiles back, weakly and small. His eyes close again and his face goes limp. Maybe he passed out from the pain. I lean foward over him and place a light kiss on his lips. They taste of blood. Everything is blood right now. He puts his hand over mine, which is still pushing on the dirty rag, and I know he wasn't passed out. He knew. He knew I kissed him, I don't want him to die. 

"We've got a problem here," Wufei says as he speeds up. I hear the engine roaring back at him for pushing it so hard. I look through the back window and see blue and red flashing lights. How the hell did they catch up with us? I kiss Heero quickly on the lips again and climb in between the front seats. "Let me drive," I tell Wufei. I slide in underneath him. We're both small, but it's still no easy task. Finally I get under him and put my foot on the gas. He climbs over me and into the passenger seat. Trowa and Quatre are in the backseat taking care of Heero. Here we go. Time for me to show these assholes just what I can do! I jam the pedal into the floorboard and take off. Ninety, Ninety-five, One hundred, One O five, One ten, One fifteen. Good speed. We're slowly losing them. I roll down my window and jab my middle finger out at them before rolling it back up. 

There's a turn ahead. A sharp turn. The sign says 35, but there's no way I can slow down now. I keep the speed a constant and fly around the turn, trying not to jerk the wheel too hard, but it doesn't help. We still go off the road and into the bushes, but we're not stopping. No way in hell. I plummet through the greenery until I see ahead, under the dim glow of my headlights, another road. We fly straight through and onto that other road. I have no idea where we are, but I keep driving. We're going back the way we came, but it's a different road, so we aren't really going back, are we? No, of course not. We'll get out of here. 

"Heero?" I hear Quatre ask in the backseat. I don't hear a response. "Heero!?" he yells. Nothing. "Heero, are you okay!? What's wrong with him?" I scream. No answer from anyone. I push hard on the brake pedal and the tires squeel to a stop. I can smell burning rubber now. No more blood. That's a good thing. 

I throw open my door and push my seat forward to get a look in the back. Heero's laying there, still and silent. His eyes are open and he's looking straight at me. Or is he? It's like he's looking through me. I'm not registering to him. Nothing is. The world has stopped spinning and he's been flung into outerspace to float for an eternity. "Heero?" I ask, pushing on his shoulder with my hand. No response. 


	8. Default Chapter Title

"Heero?" I ask, pushing on his shoulder with my hand. No response. 

"Duo..." I hear him whisper. Oh thank the God of Death. He's alive. I let out a sigh of relief. "You really scared me there!" I tell him. "I thought you were dead!" 

"I don't die that easily," he answers. I laugh bitterly and climb back into the car. Off we go. We're never stopping. I'm in my car and I'm driving, the unkown future plummeting towards me as I embrace it with my wide open arms of death. It seems an eternity that we drive, before I ask Quatre where his house is. He gives me directions. We're there in nearly an hour, no police, no one chasing us. We're free. We've gotten away. 

We all climb out of the car and Trowa helps me carry Heero inside. We lay him down on the sofa in the living room and Quatre runs to get some things to bandage him up. It's just me and Heero and Wufei now, alone in the living room. Wufei's near sleep in a chair, but I sit on the floor beside Heero's head, brushing his hair back from his face. He's breathing fine. He looks like he's asleep. I kiss his forehead. He'll be fine. Everyone will be fine. 

Quatre and Trowa return with some gauze and tape, a bowl of warm water, and some towels. I wipe the wound with the warm water. It's not bleeding as bad anymore. He's going to be okay. Trowa helps me with the dressing, seeing as how I've never done this before. I'm guessing he has. 

I decide to call an airline. We'll take a flight somewhere out of here. Good idea, right? Well, we can't stay in this house. You know they'll be searching it, looking for us. I mean, Heero did kill that doctor. I start to feel sorry for her. Then I think better of it. If I think about things like that right now, I might lose my will to get free. I'll start thinking, what's the point, and give up. I don't want to give up. It may have been murder, but she deserved it, didn't she? Well, didn't she? 

I scan through the phone book and find the nearest airport. Southwest on highway 103. That's not very far. I call them and reserve five tickets to someplace overseas. Jamaica, I think she said. We'll go there. It sounds like a nice little island. The flight's tomorrow at nine am. "We can't stay here tonight," I tell everyone. "They'll be looking for us." Quatre gives me a nod and goes to gather up some of his things. He comes back carrying two bags stuffed with possessions and a large wad of money, that he gives to me. 

We decide it would be better to ditch the stolen car and take one of Quatre's, so I drive it off a ways and find a steep hill. Good enough. I stick a bar inbetween the seat and the petal and put it in gear. It speeds off and over the cliff. When it lands, it doesn't burst into flames like I'd hoped it would, so I slowly climb down the cliff. I'd taken along a can of gas and a lighter just in case that happened. I douse the car in the gas and light it on fire. I think I'm standing too close. I can feel the flames on my face, so hot. They burn me. I'm in the fire, it feels so warm. The flames dance around me, and I smell the gas, but I'm not hurt. I'm not in the fire. I'm still standing away from the car, in a daze, wondering why I don't just jump into them. Why don't I? Heero. That's why. I want to see Heero again. I'm pulled out of my daze by a car speeding by overhead. I shake my head and climb back up the hill and run back to the house. Apparently, I'd driven farther than I thought, because it took me a while to get back. A good thirty minutes, running full speed. 

When I got inside, Quatre tossed me the keys with an unsure look on his face. He seems to be very upset by all this action. Sure, we'd done some damned bad things, but we had to. And there's no time for me to be worrying about him now. I shuffle everyone out to the car. I have the keys dangling from my belt loop and they're clicking as I walk. I like the jingly sound they make against my thigh. Heero's able to walk with little assistance, and he's helped into the passenger seat by Trowa. I climb in the drivers' seat and, after everyone else is in the back, I start the car and off we go. Quatre tells me there's a little motel not too far off. It's by the airport, conveniently. So we head in that direction. When we get there, we get three rooms. Wufei gets his own room. I'm with Heero and Quatre's with Trowa. Heero lays down on his bed and goes straight to sleep. I try to do the same, but I can't seem to close my eyes. I don't want to take them off Heero. I set the alarm and close my eyes. I think I fall asleep, because I wake up to the alarm twice. I say twice because it happens in my dream, the alarm going off. I wake up and sit up before the alarm goes off again. Then I wake up and sit up again. Deja vu. It was an eerie feeling. 

Eight o'clock. One hour until the flight. We all meet outside and go down the road for breakfast. Heero doesn't eat much. He says it hurts to eat, so I don't bother him about it. Thirty minutes before the flight, we wait in the airport, Heero asleep on my shoulder. I can smell his hair and his breath flows steadily against my chest, causing me to get goose bumps. It feels good. 

They call our flight and we all board the airplane. We wait awhile onboard before it takes off. We charge the runway and the engines scream and we're off. We're really flying away from it all. We're free. I fall asleep in my seat until we land. 

We're on the flight a few hours. When we get there, we exit the plane together and rent a car. From there, we get a hotel on the beach. We spend that night in lawn chairs in the surf, drinking exotic drinks called marguiritas. They taste bitter sweet and they tingle on the way down my throat. For one of the first times in my life, I'm happy. I'm surrounded by four friends in a paradise, palm trees swaying in the salty-tasting wind blowing off the ocean, and a beautiful, oil painting of a sunset to stare at and relax. The colors mix together in the light. Yellow flows to red and deep violet turns to black with star specks flickering here and there. It gets colder, so Heero and I go inside. I watch as he lays down on the bed to get some more sleep. He needs some rest. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll tell him how much I love him. And maybe then, we'll live happily ever after.   



	9. Default Chapter Title

I wish, oh, how I wish I could tell you that what I told you is true. That Heero and I, and my three other friends went to a tropical paradise to spend the eternity of our days, that I tell Heero I love him, he returns the love, and we live happily ever after. It's just that I would be lying, and I never lie. I must tell the truth. What really happened is painful for everyone, me especially, but it must be told. Even if I cry in the process, you must know the truth. 

Heero never responded to me pushing on his shoulder and calling his name. That cold, blank stare he had in his eyes, the one that refused to register me, was the stare of death. The shot wound was worse than we thought. He bled to death in the backseat of the car. When I stopped and went back there to check on him, his lips were blue and his eyes were blank. I knew he was dead. I've seen death before, but never had it affected me like this did. I stopped thinking clearly and got back in the car. We took off down the road. Another sharp turn. Thirty-five. No way in hell. What do I have to live for? No... what's the point in keeping myself alive? We all die. May as well live. You must be brave enough to live, because anybody can die, even the people you love, even though you haven't had the time to tell them so. 

So I drive. I go faster than usual, I can tell, but I don't bother to look at the speedometer. We're flying. Flying around the turn. And there, of course, was a bridge up ahead. I was off the road, I was skidding in the foliage along the sides. I ran up on the gurad rail of the bridge. We flip and turn and roll and skid down the hill, into a deep ditch with a small river flowing underneath us. I've hit my head on the windshield. It nearly busted through. There's blood everywhere. It's all over the dashboard and the steering wheel and my face. I taste it in my mouth. Everyone else is okay. Trowa's broken his arm and Wufei's got a nice cut on his forehead from the dashboard. I reach up to feel my crushed skull. It feels like mush. My skull is gone. All that's left is a big pile of mush brains under my skin. It feels gooey and sticky and weird. And that's the last thing I remember from that life, is feeling my brain squish between my fingers. That's it. 

No more pain. All the pain is gone. And now, here I am with Heero, on a tropical island in the middle of an eternity of ocean. we sip our marguiritas and watch the eternal sunset that never fades into night. The salty air blasts my face and it tastes so fresh. I'm here in an eternity with Heero, sipping marguiritas and telling him how much I love him. It's better to die than to keep on living. Now I know why I tried to kill myself so often. But I do have a feeling that if I had, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be somewhere else. Somewhere dark and eerie that I wouldn't like much. I didn't kill myself on purpose, I just didn't care. But I am glad I'm dead. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore. Just the sunset, worrying if it will ever fade into night. 

Quatre, Trowa and Wufei aren't here with us. That's one of the only differences about this place. They survived. They lived on the rest of their lives. Who knows what they're up to now. To tell the truth, I don't really even care. I'm here. I'm alive, in a manner of speaking, and I'm happy. No worries. 

Heero looks at me and smiles and I take his hand. I wonder if he even knows he's dead. It took me awhile to figure it out. I had to try very hard to remember exactly what happened that night. I was glad I didn't survive that night, or I would've had to live on without him. You see, dying's the easy part. It's going on without that person that's truly difficult. Maybe I'm too weak for it. But hey, I'm a selfish person. I'd rather be happy now than to wait a lifetime for another person as beautiful as Heero to come along. I know he loves me too. He tells me with his eyes. 

So here we sit for our eternity together. I take another sip from my straw and feel the bitter sweet taste travel down my throat. So good. So warm. I just hope I don't get bored spending an eternity watching a sunset with the person I love. But who could get bored with that? 


End file.
